


shivering, chiming

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Holding Hands, Inspired By Tumblr, Introspection, M/M, Promnis Week 2018, stealth date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Free time is, oddly, a rare and strange thing to be in possession of, on this road trip to Noctis Lucis Caelum's destiny.So when a day falls right into Prompto's hands, he turns right around and offers it, with a smile, to Ignis.What wonders could a long walk through a city have in store for the two of them?





	shivering, chiming

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Promnis Week 2018 and posted for Day Seven because the idea hit me out of a clear blue sky and it -- didn't quite hit any of the other week's themes. Oops? :) *kweh*
> 
> Wind chimes to read with: [click here](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/post/169215176216/scotchtapeofficial-widewaterwoman).

It’s an odd thing, he thinks, seeing Ignis distracted: because he’s too used to those eyes narrowed in fine-tuned focus, every line of that long lean frame tensed in pure concentration. What he’s actually doing seemingly doesn’t matter -- although everything he does seems to matter -- the rise and fall of staccato knife-work. The flash and fluttering glow of magic as he weaves it into containment, ready for use, safely kept within one labeled flask or another. The oddly soothing warmth of maintenance, a handful of real blades in their graceful lines, and the whisper-scratch of a whetstone meeting fine steel. 

Prompto’s hands are still on the table, and there’s no way in all the hells that he can capture the movement of Ignis, that only looks involuntary. Elegant hands, not quite twitching, as he tilts his head this way and that: he’s been listening, and listening hard, since sitting down to breakfast.

And Noctis and Gladio have been gone for several minutes now, running off to a rare free day -- they’d been grinning at each other like conspirators unleashed, right from the start of the meal, and now it’s just Prompto left at the table, watching: and Ignis’s hands go still once again, midway through tearing a roll into more manageable pieces.

“I can hear it,” he offers, then, and there: there’s the focus, honing in, targeting. He knows how that feels, right down to the slowing-down of his own heartbeat in his ears, the rising awareness of the blood rushing through the veins in his fingertips. 

“I beg your pardon,” Ignis says, soft and sharp.

“The others,” and Prompto shrugs, a little. Not to defuse the situation. He wants very much to reassure Ignis. “They didn’t act like they could hear that, those -- sounds like glass, right? Sounds like the wind, only, only it’s nicer, sweet, like you can hear it dancing on, on things that make music. I can hear the sounds, maybe that’s what’s got you distracted, and I have no idea what I’m talking about.” He looks away, then, and the sunlight is warm on his boots but not as warm as the flaring heat in his own cheeks. Stupid, stupid. He doesn’t know how to describe things that make him feel like he wants to smile. Not in words, anyway; he sees the world, and he never has the words to tell people about what he sees. 

That’s what the camera’s for, and he’s left it behind: how? Why? The world is safer from behind a viewfinder. He can focus, when he’s behind it, and he can zoom in and get lost when he’s looking at the details of something. He’s left it behind and now he has no shield, here, where he feels like he’s shrinking steadily smaller and smaller beneath Ignis’s gaze.

He sighs, and the slice of pie next to his plate no longer holds any appeal for him, and he pushes partway back from the table. “Right. Sorry. Never ask me to tell you how I’m feeling because I can’t even find the words to tell myself. I’ll -- leave you to it?”

“Please don’t -- don’t leave.”

Prompto blinks.

Ignis isn’t reaching out to him: but, does he need to? Eyes coming a little unfocused as that tinkling teasing music whirls up again. Every time the wind grows stronger, in its sea-salt scents, the music comes back, multitude of sweet notes rising.

Prompto can’t stop himself from smiling as that same wind pulls at Ignis’s hair: strands coming loose with every gust.

And he says, “Do you want to go and find it? Whatever’s making that sound. I mean. You might feel better, if you know. If you can see it for yourself.”

“Would that be a good use of your time?”

Blink, again.

“Me,” he asks. “My time? What?”

Faint red flush appearing over those sharp cheekbones. “I am quite aware we -- we won’t have many chances, for time to spend at leisure like this. We may have had our detours and our delays, but in the end, we are still running on a timetable, and -- much hangs in the balance, of following that timetable. And I, I would not presume to take up your time, if you’ve a mind to do as you will, today.”

He takes a moment to sift through the words, and there’s an oddly distant cast to Ignis’s eyes, and he steps closer to him, and for once he’s looking down because Ignis doesn’t seem to want to get up from the table. 

“I want to do what I want to do, today,” he says, and he feels -- calm, here, next to Ignis. Crisp starched collar. Scatter of spots and old scars in his face. Sleeve-garters to match his braces, both visible because he’s set his suit jacket aside. Sunlight-gleam on his gloves, on the decorations in his shoes. “And -- I didn’t really have any plans? So I, I don’t really -- it’s anything goes right now. And right now you’re hearing those pretty sounds, and so am I, and I think it’ll be nice to find out what’s making them. So, I want to find them. And I’d like to know if you wanna come with.”

“I only didn’t want to be a bother.”

He tilts his head, and frowns. “The hell? How could you be a bother?”

Brief amused moue. “You only spend your mornings listening to Noctis, when he grumbles. And you do know he spends much of his time grumbling at me.”

“Oh, him,” and Prompto grins, and turns away because it’s funny and it’s true. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t mean that to be mean. Just, I know what he’s doing. No filters on that one. None on me, either, most of the time, and we gotta suck it up and deal, or learn to deal, and -- well.” He shrugs. “We’re getting off the subject.”

“I suppose we are.”

The wind stills, as they stand at an intersection, and he scuffs his boots along the sidewalk. Mutters to himself. “I don’t know, I don’t know, why am I always going to places I know exactly zero things about?”

“In that you’re not alone,” and out of the corner of his eye he sees Ignis’s shoulder move in a half-hearted shrug. “Perhaps when I was much younger I might have spent time in this city. Some of the details are familiar to me: you see that tower, there near the edge of the water?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s one of the last lighthouses,” Ignis says as the lights at the intersection change, and he starts walking again, and he starts off at a brisk pace and then he seems to catch himself, and slow down. A little. Not by much. 

Prompto keeps up and grins and listens.

“It was famous for, ah, I cannot remember now. Something about the details of the construction. It isn’t, or it wasn’t, like the others that had been constructed around the same time.”

“Wasn’t?” Prompto asks.

“The other lighthouses are gone, now,” he hears Ignis say. “Perhaps worn down by the elements. Perhaps unmade by human hands. I do not know how many remain. But they used to be a chain, all along the coast: lights in the night, so sailing vessels would always know about -- safe waters, and hazardous ones.”

He nods, and shrugs. “If we can find the, the thing we’re looking for right now, if we have time after that we can walk down to the lighthouse too.”

“I’d like that.”

Ranks of white stone, wind-worn and wind-polished, and windows thrown wide open to the sun, and then -- he catches sight of a pocket of green and he can’t help but stop and stare. 

Clamor and cry of laughter, gaining on them, and he drops off the sidewalk and into the gutter, while Ignis turns toward the shaded stoop of a fabric shop: and between them comes a ragged line of children, wide smiles and white smocks. Wide-brimmed hat on their minder, dashing past -- and the children and their companion head straight for the small park that he’d glimpsed.

Ignis is chuckling, softly, when they resume their walk. “I should not, hmm, grouse about my responsibilities, not after seeing that.”

“Hey,” Prompto laughs back. “We resemble that remark.”

“Precisely.”

They pass a candy shop with chocobo-shaped lollipops in the window: the chiming musical tinkling starts up again, and Prompto can’t help but grin. “Not your imagination or mine, now.”

“Yes, we must be getting close.” Lingering uptick at the corner of Ignis’s mouth, and sunlight falling into the lines of his face.

He looks so much brighter, is the stray thought that crosses Prompto’s mind. Carefree, underneath these cloudless skies, surrounded by blazing white and the salt on the now-constant breeze.

Another busy intersection: that same wind sharpens, a little, and it sends a chill down the back of his neck, and he almost freezes in mid-stride as they cross.

“Prompto?”

Again that focus, again trained on him: but something about Ignis is gentler.

“Stupid wind,” he tells him, and grins. “It got me wrong. I’ll,” and he unrolls the collar of his heavy vest, so there’s soft leather and stitching brushing the edges of his ears. “See, all good.”

“I do not wish you to catch a chill.”

“Right, right, I don’t want to be a drag on you,” he agrees, and he sticks his hands in his pockets so the wind can’t snap at those, either.

“That is not what I meant.” The words start out sharp, and then, and then Ignis smiles again. “This is your, ah, your thing, after all. I am walking with you, today.”

“Yeah you are.” Prompto grins back.

The next time they stop, it’s Ignis who holds up a hand first, at the approach to a blind corner -- and Prompto is used to running point, because he likes to scout out vantage points and approaches, so he’s the one who sees the women first.

His fingers itch very badly for his camera, then.

Three women walking side by side. Quick-tripping small steps, and the wind adds to the flutter, as well, of their extravagant hems and sleeves. Red and black robes, and he sees the slight differences in the shimmering patterns, the bright splashing richness of three different sets of belts. 

He’s still staring, even after they’ve vanished into one of the nearby alleyways, and all he can say is, “Wow.”

“Indeed,” and maybe he catches Ignis looking back over his shoulder, too, when they’ve moved on.

Past a sign for a boardwalk in its long gentle slope down to the beach, and then Ignis stops and looks up: and Prompto follows his gaze, and sucks in his breath, thinking. “Special place?”

“A shrine,” Ignis says. “Red and black, and a gateway like this, shaped to divide heaven from earth.”

“So we can’t go in.”

“No. On the contrary, we can. They do not bar people from entry, so long as they are respectful.”

The wind kicks up again and the chiming music rises and rises, loud and bright like a cheerful storm, and Prompto feels the impulse rising in him in response: and he grabs Ignis’s hand before either one of them can think it through or even take another breath. Grabs his hand, and breaks into a run, and they’re through the red and black gateway and down a series of steps, onto a paved path and the bright green of young grass on either side and -- 

Oh.

This was what they’d been hearing all along, the two of them.

The wind whirls falling leaves and yellow blossoms around them, and Prompto swears his heart’s pounding fit to burst out of his chest: but it’s nothing at all like the hard burn of running, or the adrenaline spike of getting through a hunt alive and all in one piece. Nothing like that: it’s like beauty’s come to snare him, winding him gently in silken cords, and the sunbeams shattering on frail clear glass.

Trellis in the shade of a tall tree, its branches spreading wide and far, and the light slanting through the broad leaves casts nets of brightness at his feet and Ignis’s. Intricate weave of wood and the bright blue cords lashing it all together. 

The sparkling chimes of glass beads knocking against dome-shaped hollow vessels. Some are painted with flowers and leaves and raindrops, and some are plain. The beads, too, are all a pretty mismatch: some are green, some are blue, some are yellow, and some are a swirling mix of bright colors. 

He can almost see the movement of the wind thanks to the pieces of paper hanging from each bead, dancing every which way, and if he squints he can almost see the written words. 

“Oh,” Ignis says.

When he steps forward Prompto moves with him: their hands are still joined and -- and, yeah, he thinks he’s not imagining this, the fact that Ignis won’t let go of him, not when he’s walking right up to the chimes, not when he’s reaching out to touch, stilling one from its shivering dance. Ignis is using his free hand to feel out its shape, focusing on the strokes of color decorating the open ends.

So Prompto breathes in the lovely tinkling music and -- looks at Ignis.

Half-smile, like the smile of someone caught up in a good thought, a good memory: it lights up the entirety of him. Catches in the lines at the corners of his eyes, the sunlit strands of his hair, the shape of him reaching out to the chimes.

“Beautiful,” Prompto says. He can’t help himself.

“Yes, these chimes are -- they are lovely,” Ignis says.

“Them too.”

The hand in his goes tense.

Prompto braces himself. Looks away. He thinks of a quip, a joke, and resigns himself to an awkward walk back to the hotel, alone, and he doesn’t even know how he’s going to get back because they must be halfway across the city by now, and following a map on his smartphone will be tricky -- 

The hand he’s holding tenses, then relaxes, and moves: and Prompto can’t help but blink.

Because he’s being drawn in, he’s being pulled straight into Ignis’s warmth, shoulders to soles, and even their shadows rippling on the grass, in the wind and the dancing sunbeams, have flowed together into one.

He looks up and now Ignis is looking at him. 

Oh.

Again that regard, warm now, gentle and kind and so many, many other things, like something sweet and delicate and good. “Is this all right?” 

And what else is there to say but the thought that’s right on the leading edge in his mind. “Better than all right.”

“Good. That’s good to know,” he hears Ignis say.

And Prompto turns his head a little, and touches his forehead to the sleeve of Ignis’s jacket.

The world drops away, and so does his focus, except for the awareness of Ignis, who is leaning towards him.

He listens to the wind chimes.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
